Ivanka Trump appeared to be enjoying a quiet Memorial Day weekend with her family, tweeting a photo of herself lovingly snuggling her two-year-old son, Theodore. But she couldn't have anticipated the immediate backlash the mother-son image quickly created.

Or perhaps she should have.

US president Donald Trump's eldest daughter and personal adviser had barely posted the candid photo, along with a love heart emoji and the hashtag #SundayMorning, when Twitter users began to lash out, labelling the image "offensive" and "unbelievably tone deaf".

Outraged reaction was due in part to the poor timing of the tweet. The mother-of-three shared the private moment with her young son amid widespread reports that hundreds of migrant children have been removed from their own mothers by US border agents; the result of President Trump's policy enacted this month that separates undocumented immigrant children from their parents.

A Senate testimony last month claimed that as many as 1,500 migrant kids taken from the US-Mexico border and placed in temporary homes by a federal refugee office are missing. A top official also testified the government isn't "legally responsible" for finding them, The Huff Post reports.

The 36-year-old also took to Instagram over the weekend to share multiple photos of her "lunch date" with her two-year-old at the White House.

Stand-up comedian Patton Oswalt was one of thousands to make a connection between Ivanka's tweet and the separation of families at the border under her father's administration.

"Isn't it the just the best to snuggle your little one – knowing exactly where they are, safe in your arms?" Oswalt tweeted. "It's the best. The BEST. Right, Ivanka? Right?"

MSNBC correspondent Joy Reid wrote, "You'd almost never know her father's administration, to which she is an adviser, was brutally separating migrant children from their asylum-seeking parents and lost track of 1,5000 of them."

Isn't it the just the best to snuggle your little one -- knowing exactly where they are, safe in your arms? It's the best. The BEST. Right, Ivanka? Right? https://t.co/X79r8aWInc

You’d almost never know her father’s administration, to which she is an adviser, was brutally separating migrant children from their asylum-seeking parents and lost track of 1,500 of them... https://t.co/sMQ2GWA2zY

Actor Jim Carrey, who often expresses his opposition to the Trump administration through controversial portraits, shared his thoughts.

1500 innocent children ripped from their mothers’ arms at our border. Lost in Trump’s “system”. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddle masses yearning to breathe free -- and we will torture them for wanting a better life. From Shining City to Evil Empire in under 500 days. pic.twitter.com/Qg07vb0aBg

Many mothers and fathers also responded to the tweet, asking the first daughter to contemplate being forcibly separated from her own child.

"You're a mother of 3. So am I. Imagine someone in an ICE uniform takes away your precious baby, and you never get to see him or her ever again," one user wrote." This is what's going on, thanks to your Dad's policy. DO SOMETHING."

The hashtag #WhereAreTheChildren quickly went viral.

How would your Sunday be if the federal government ripped this child from your arms and put him in a detention facility? https://t.co/sn3t3vfB8j

The administration you work for and support is separating thousands of children from their parents. Some of the children lost in the system and probably settling in with traffickers. How tone deaf can you be? #WhereAreTheChildren